Mimoyecques

This is the massive site of the smooth bore 420-foot long V3 'London Gun' battery. The guns, comprising 2 sets of 25 barrels each, were designed to propel, by a series of staged explosions, a slim missile with a 55lb explosive charge, to a muzzle velocity of over 5000 feet per second, which gave it a range of 100 miles. The V3 weapon was intended to rain missiles on London, 90 miles away, at the rate of 600 an hour, deluging the city with incendiary and high explosive shells. The upper tunnel was protected by 100 feet of chalk and two levels lay below this. This tunnel is now open over 2,000 feet, with a further 500 feet being blocked by bomb damage. The collapse occurred in July 1944 and was accomplished with the use of Tallboy and other bombs, one of which went through the barrel shaft and penetrated to the bottom floor, shattering an aquifer in the chalk and flooding of the lower levels and the loss of all who had taken shelter there. There are memorials to these casualties and also to Joseph Kennedy, brother of John F Kennedy. He and his crew died in August 1944 in a raid on the complex while piloting a B27 crammed with explosives for remote control bombing of the site. His aircraft exploded before he could parachute out.